The present invention relates to an arrangement for distributing and dispatching traffic in a network, especially H.323 generated traffic, which arrangement comprises one or more gatekeepers, here designated as so-called external or real gatekeepers.
Today there does not exist any lightweight solution for distributing and dispatching H.323 generated traffic.
It is perfectly possible to distribute and dispatch H.323 by using a gatekeeper. It might however be costly to run a full fledge gatekeeper for distributing and dispatching H.323 generated traffic if the intention only is to distribute and dispatch H.323 generated traffic. A real gatekeeper is complex and has to know about lots of messages etc. described in H.323. An endpoint may be any kind of H.323 based equipment.
In H.323 version 2, redundancy of gatekeepers are described, where one gatekeeper is instructing the endpoint to contact another known gatekeeper if itself can not fulfil the service requested. It requires however that endpoints understand version 2 of the protocol, and interpret the message fields. This solution is not applicable for load balancing, as it has no mechanism for one real gatekeeper to know of the other, or any mechanism to report load between them.
An object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which the distribution and dispatch of H.323 generated traffic can be provided in a far more expedient and less costly manner.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which endpoints can be put in contact with so-called external or real gatekeepers without having to be reconfigured depending on which gatekeeper they want to communicate with.
A further object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which supplementary achievements, comprising for example load balancing, QoS (Quality of Service), information about cost, etc. can easily be implemented.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an arrangement by which the messages associated with so-called external or real gatekeepers are utilised in a rational and effective manner.
The above objects are achieved in an arrangement as stated in the preamble, which according to the present invention is characterized by the introduction of one or more internal and lightweight gatekeepers, where internal means that they are arranged in a certain domain, and they are lightweight in the sense that each gatekeeper support a limited range of the H.323 message set, each such lightweight gatekeeper basically understanding any message used by any endpoint when registering to a real gatekeeper and that each lightweight gatekeeper is adapted to put an endpoint of its domain in contact with an external or real gatekeeper, outside said domain.
In other words, the present invention performs the H.323 distribution and dispatch by utilising an extreme lightweight gatekeeper that basically understands the GRQ (Gatekeeper Request), GCF (Gatekeeper Confirm) and GRJ (Gatekeeper Reject) H.323 RAS messages.
These messages are stated in H.225 and are used by endpoints when registering to a gatekeeper. Such a lightweight gatekeeper is able to put an endpoint within the lightweight gatekeeper""s domain in contact with a full fledge or real gatekeeper outside its own domain.
How to achieve supplementary achievements as e.g. load balancing is also described in the text below. Some of the ways described here not only involves GRQ, GCF and GRJ.
Further features and advantages of the present invention will appear from the following description taken in conjunction with the enclosed drawings.